Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of Tourism, met with Sebastian Ebel, CEO of the global TUI Group for the Middle East and North Africa region, to discuss ways of strengthening cooperation with the company in the coming period to drive more inbound tourism to Egypt. The meeting came after the British company Thomas Cook declared bankruptcy last week.
In this context, the head of TUI Group stated that the group is working to win Thomas Cook's share of various tourism markets, including Egypt, and expressed his desire to strengthen cooperation with the ministry to a greater extent in the coming period and to increase the company's volume of business in Egypt, especially in the field of investment and driving inbound tourism through the group, in addition to opening new markets, such as China, from which to bring tourists to Egypt.
The head of TUI noted that tourists are now increasingly inclined to look for the activities they will do during their trips before choosing a hotel and booking airline tickets, pointing out that the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum next year will contribute greatly to this and will attract diverse segments of tourists. He expressed the group's readiness to promote Egypt's various tourist destinations among its customers through the group's various platforms.
For her part, Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of Tourism, stressed that the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum next year will renew the world's interest in the cultural tourism product, adding that the new Sphinx International Airport is only 15 minutes from the museum site, which will help facilitate the movement of tourists to it and give them the opportunity to head to various tourist cities after visiting the museum. She pointed to the possibility of TUI Group diversifying its tourism programs for Egypt by combining cultural tourism with other types of tourism, including beach tourism.
She pointed to the ministry's interest in promoting each tourist area separately, which is one of the pillars of the Ministry of Tourism's promotional campaign, Branding by Destination.
On another note, the CEO of TUI Group for the Middle East and North Africa praised all the steps and structural reforms the ministry is undertaking to develop the sector, which have led to the tourism boom Egypt is witnessing, noting the importance of the diverse international partnerships the ministry relies on and its new approach to promoting Egypt through greater use of social media, especially as it has become more effective than traditional promotion methods.
The meeting touched on ways of cooperating with TUI Group through joint promotional campaigns, and the effective and influential role of these campaigns in driving more inbound tourism to Egypt and opening new markets. In this regard, Dr. Rania Al-Mashat noted that the ministry has approved the new rules and standards governing these campaigns for the 2019/2020 fiscal year, so that they are more influential and effective in promoting Egypt and consistent with the pillars of the new promotional campaign.
The minister spoke about the World Economic Forum's Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2019, in which Egypt achieved the fourth-highest growth in performance globally in the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, while Egypt also advanced from 60th to 5th place in tourism promotion and marketing strategy.
She noted that the ministry now relies on establishing many international partnerships to diversify the mechanisms for promoting Egypt, including the global Discovery, the global Expedia Group, Isobar, the Chinese company Ctrip, the global CNN network and Beautiful Destinations.
Regarding the project to develop the Pyramids area, she pointed to the importance of this project, which will help upgrade the entire area and provide it with all the services tourists need, such as hotels, restaurants and others, so that it becomes an integrated attraction that is more civilized for tourists and visitors, befitting an area that reflects the greatness of Egyptian civilization, noting that there are many investment opportunities in this area.
The meeting also discussed the details of the new aviation stimulus program launched by the Ministry of Tourism in cooperation with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, which came into effect on November 1, 2018 and runs until April 29, 2020. The head of the global TUI Group for the Middle East and North Africa expressed the group's desire to continue cooperating with the ministry in the new aviation stimulus program.
